The Undergraduate Student Government at Arizona State University is pushing for SB 1190, a medical amnesty bill that will allow intoxicated minors to seek help from first responders without legal consequences.
Cassidy Possehl, the president of USG, and Devon Mills, an ASU alumnus, provided buses for more than 100 students and rallied up various members of both the ASU and University of Arizona communities to lobby for the bill at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing downtown on Thursday.
USG was successful in their lobbying efforts for a bill they believe will save lives. SB 1190 passed on a 6-1 vote and will be moving onto the Senate floor.
Possehl became involved with this piece of legislation over a year ago when she approached Mills with concerns about what was happening in the community.
“We were, in the most literal of ways, losing friends and classmates to alcohol-related incidences that were all avoidable if someone would have just called for emergency help,” Possehl said.
The bill will protect intoxicated minors who are in need of emergency assistance from receiving a Minor in Consumption and/or a Minor in Possession misdemeanor. It will also give amnesty to the person who calls on behalf of another person who is in need of help so long as the intoxicated minors stay on scene and cooperate with authorities.
Minors are afraid to call because they fear facing legal prosecution and people who are in need of help risk dying, Possehl said.
If the bill becomes a law, it will not only be used when a person is suffering from alcohol poisoning, but can also be used for sexual assault reporting.
A person who has been sexually assaulted can call the police right away and receive a rape kit without fearing that they will get an Minor in Consumption charge, Possehl said, but many sexual assault victims wait until the alcohol is out of their system. By then some of the biological evidence has been destroyed.
The fear of being charged with a misdemeanor is not worth losing the ability to prosecute a rapist, and sometimes a serial rapist, Possehl said.
Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, voted yes on the bill, but like many other senators he said the focus needs to be at the root of the problem — underage drinking.
“I support this to save lives, I support this for young women that are sexually assaulted that they will come forward and deal with this, but we have a problem and I think its time that we face that in Arizona,” Worsley said. “It’s time to face the fact that we’re ruining a lot of lives at very young ages and allowing people to do stupid things when we should be teaching them how to be smart and become educated.”
“There’s just too much, too much partying, too much stupidity, when we’re putting our kids through college to become smart,” he added.
Opposition to the bill stems from the belief that the bill will promote underage drinking and a fear that minors will abuse the system.
“This isn’t a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card,’” Mills said. “The officers have that discretion to determine what it is or what it isn’t.”
This bill does not give amnesty to drug possession or any other illegal activity. If a person calls and the officer determines that there was not an emergency situation then that officer can still issue an MIC, Mills said.
Alexandra Bice, a freshman at ASU, lobbied for the bill with USG Thursday morning.
“I feel it’s important that students feel comfortable enough to call the police in an emergency,” Bice said. “I think it’s important to get the message across that police are here to help you and not to just give you an MIC.”
Possehl and USG plan to continue gathering people to lobby for the bill as it is moved onto the Senate floor.
This will give students a chance to be civically engaged and it will show legislators that this is an actual problem, Possehl said.
Contact the reporter at Dylan.Foy@asu.edu.
